Category: Business

Cal Newport has written a great piece on a process for getting things of a creative nature done when there are other demands on your time. I recommend reading it here.

His ideas draw from those of Paul Graham and David Allen and basically revolve around scheduling blocks of time through the week to do the creative work (1 to 3 hour blocks) and scheduling everything else around those like they were locked in appointments. Read Cal’s full article to get the full richness of this.

Digital ImageMaker International is coming out as both a print magazine and as an app for iPad.

DIMi looks at all areas of image making that involve some aspect of the digital. We are aiming to create ways for people to get recognition for their work, to help them get gallery shows and to ultimately help them obtain sales if that is important. The content includes, but is not limited to:

Digital art

Photography, whether commercial, documentary, art or personal, that involves digital in some part of the process, whether capture, processing or output

Traditional photographic processes that include either digital image capture or a digital negative in their production

Fractals

3D graphics

Video

Animation

As such, we are seeking submissions of the following:

Portfolios of high quality work

Strong single pieces from emerging practitioners

Articles: how-to, philosophy of imaging, inspirational, exhibition reviews of major shows and such

For photography and digital art educators we are keen to publish portfolios of collected student works.

For an example of how the app form will function you can look at our first book as an app, Photography Wisdom for iPad at http://itunes.com/apps/PhotographyWisdom

More to control submissions, we are placing a submission fee on portfolios and individual images. Portfolios attract a submission fee of US$7.50 while individual images attract a submission fee of $4.50 paid through PayPal only. For submissions from within Australia this price includes 10% GST. This is non-refundable, does not guarantee you publication and your submissions will only be examined after payment through Paypal has been received. In the case of tertiary educators submitting portfolios of student work we will forego the submission fee so long as you are from a recognised tertiary educational institution and clearly identify it as such on your submission.

The Paypal account for TechnoMagickal Pty Ltd is wayne at (@) dimagemaker.com

Article submissions are not paid at this stage, though we intend to start paying for articles from issue 2 onwards if possible. Basically it goes against the grain not to pay, so we will as soon as we can.

DIMi is not a how-to magazine. Its focus is more on what people are doing and why. That said, we will include quality how-to features that make sense in the context of the other content.

The aim is to make the most use of the potential the digital tools are giving us. The print edition is being done as print-on-demand.

We are looking to publish only the highest quality work. Because of potential issues with the app store approval process we cannot accept pornographic or explicit sexual material or any material that can be construed as inciting hatred, discrimination, etc. We may have to be careful with nudity as well but will explore this as we go. Naturally we reserve the final right to decide what work we accept and publish. We are hoping we can relax some or all of these restrictions over time as everyone figures out how to deal with these issues and art in electronic distribution.

We are also happy to publish articles that we disagree with or work that we find challenging. That’s the nature of the art and writing world and it is pretty pointless taking your bat and ball and running off home to mummy when people disagree with you. Such work might generate interesting debates that might help to clarify the issue over time for our readers, so it is great.

So what do we want from you? Well, if you have portfolios of interesting work then we want to see them. We need JPEGs of the images initially, sized to maximum dimension 1024 pixels (and I mean exactly that), along with a Word or similar document with something like an artist’s statement or statement of your philosophy or approach. If we choose to publish your submission we will contact you for higher resolution images (for the print version) as well as to conduct an interview to fill out the text. Please limit initial submissions to 8 -10 images initially. If we want to publish your work we will likely ask to see more.

Those submitting student’s work should pick a representative sample of the work you expect to be publishable. That means going through your students’ work and choosing that which you consider good enough to publish and submitting a selection that represents the whole range from the best to the worse you think is able to be published.

If you have an article you would like to submit we are happy to consider it. Again send JPEG screen resolution images with the article initially and we will go from there. An article is not an opportunity to slip in a portfolio by another name.

If you have single knock-out images rather than a whole portfolio, then we would be happy to examine them for possible publication in a section that will run each issue of inspirational material.

For those submitting video or animation material we obviously cannot work with Flash. We would prefer a link to where we can view the video on the web somewhere initially, so we only have to handle large files when we know we will publish them. Video will go in the app but not, obviously, in the print edition. That will go online and a link provided.

With whatever you submit, your submission means that you are willing to have your work published by DIMi, that you own the copyright for the submission and have all relevant rights and permissions to do so, such as model and property releases, etc. Further your submission means that you indemnify Digital ImageMaker International, Technomagickal Pty Ltd and Sci-Art Trust, plus our assignees and partners, from any claims relating to copyright, rights and permissions relating to your submission.

DIMi wants no rights over your submission beyond a perpetual and non-exclusive right to publish your work in any form, electronic or print, indefinitely, but only in the form of the DIMi magazine or any special issues or accumulations (such as a Best of DIMi) or in the advertising of such. Your work will always be published with your name and, wherever possible, a link to a site where people can see more of your work and contact you, except in the case of illustrations showing the magazine in advertising or on the app store.

If you are submitting an article then the above all applies, as well as the requirement that the article has either not been published or submitted elsewhere, or if it has been published elsewhere that you retain the rights to further publication.

We are also happy to accept suggestions for ways we can better serve our readership.

The first issue will be published when we have enough suitable material. Following that we are aiming for a new issue every second month, but would like to ramp that up quickly to a more frequent schedule. We would rather do smaller issues more frequently as this will keep the print cost down and thus make it more feasible for featured artists and photographers to use multiple copies as promotional tools and when seeking things like gallery representation, exhibitions, grant proposals, etc.

People with work in the issue will be provided with a PDF the article covering them. Print and app versions will have to be bought.

Feedback is welcome.

Please email me offlist on wayne at (@) dimagemaker.com

Please put the word SUBMISSION in the Subject if that is what you are doing.

BTW if you email a submission and don’t hear anything for some time, don’t stress. If you haven’t heard within a month or two then an email from the same address you sent the submission from enquiring if we received it makes sense as you might have been caught by a spam filter or such. If you don’t get a reply from that, try an email from a different address.